


The In Between

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Urban Fantasy [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Curse Shop AU, Gen, Inspired by aknightley, It's a curse shop au... but platonic!, Witch AU, surprise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 19:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15055787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: Keith is a witch who specializes in breaking curses. Lance is a witch who got himself cursed. You see how this has to go.





	The In Between

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everybody, this fic was inspired by the wonderful curse shop au from @aknightley, and slightly inspired by the song the In Between by Beartooth. Mostly the same idea, I just made it platonic and tweaked the plot a little bit. Enjoy, and keep an eye on this new series for three more urban fantasy oneshots in the near future.

“This stupid goddamn piece of shit motherfucking-”

“Keith!” Shiro poked his head out of the supply closet, wearing an exasperated expression. “Can you please not swear when you’re working the counter?”

“Shiro, this ring has three curses on it.  _ Three. _ ”

“And your solution is to continue cursing it?”

Keith scowled at the golden ring sitting on the counter before him. Shiro, apparently appeased, disappeared back into the closet while Keith glared.

Taking a deep breath, he leaned his elbows on the counter and closed his eyes. His magic brushed up against the ring, bringing to his mind’s eye the image of a knot. This one was simple as curses go, though a bit finicky. After doing it twice, he knew exactly which thread to tug, exactly how hard to pull. It resisted for a moment, but eventually relinquished it’s hold on the ring and dissipated. Thankfully for Keith’s sanity there wasn’t another layer underneath.

“Fucking finally.” he muttered, pushing himself back from the counter. He kept giving the ring the stink eye while he tied his hair back, and it gleamed back at him, almost mockingly. 

Ten minutes later the bell over the front door chimed, admitting the man to whom the ring belonged. He stormed inside the shop, not bothering to remove his sunglasses, and slammed his palm down on the counter. Keith resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Did you fix my ring yet?” he asked impatiently, tapping his fingertips against the wood.

“Yup.” answered Keith. “Thirty bucks.”

“Thirty? You said ten.” 

“It was triple cursed. Hence, thirty.”

The man grumbled, but took out his wallet anyway. Keith waited until he was paid before he spoke again.

“You might want to break up with your girlfriend.”

The man’s head snapped up. “What?”

“She’s the one who cursed your ring, right? Probably found out you’re married.” Keith eyed where the man was sliding the ring back onto his finger and quirked an eyebrow. “Or maybe your wife did it. Either way one of them is pretty pissed with you.”

The man scowled, barked out, “Fuck you,” and left the shop in a hurry. Keith couldn’t hold back his chuckles.

Shiro emerged from the supply closet, covered in dust and shaking his head at Keith’s antics. 

“You really shouldn’t mouth off to the customers.” he tried to scold, but a smile was threatening at the corners of his lips. 

“I wasn’t mouthing off.” Keith said, leaning back against the back counter with a smirk. “I was offering sincere advice.”

Before Shiro could continue to argue the phone behind the counter started chirping. That sound meant someone they knew was calling, and Keith snatched it up before Shiro could get close, sticking out his tongue at the other man.

“Hello, Keith?” His eyebrows shot up at the familiar voice on the other end of the line.

“Oh, hey Allura. You want to talk to Shiro?”

“No actually. I just had a patient I recommended your shop to. He should be arriving shortly.”

Keith’s eyebrows only rose higher. Allura was a doctor; an actual doctor, not using healing magic. Why she would recommend one of her patients to a curse breaker, Keith couldn’t figure out.

“Uh, ok. Why?” 

“Because he has a curse he needs broken. Why else?”

Keith rolled his eyes and made a face across the room at Shiro.

“Shiroooo, your fiance is being evasive again.”

Allura chuckled through the speaker at him. “Alright, Keith, I’ve got to run. Say hello to Shiro for me.”

“Will do ‘Lura. Talk to you later.” He hung up the phone and turned back to Shiro, only to see him trying in vain to clean the dust off of his face. He made a bewildered face and then sneezed, making Keith laugh shamelessly.

“Shut up, you brat.” Shiro muttered at him with another shake of his head. 

“Go clean yourself up.” Keith answered with a grin. Shiro listened, hopping over the counter to go down the hallway behind it, towards the bathroom. Keith turned his attention to the shelves behind the counter, selecting another stick of incense from one of the cartons. A mere tap from his finger set the tip aflame. 

He let it burn for a moment, then gently blew it out, watching the wisps of smoke rise to the ceiling before setting it into his incense holder. The ceramic lion stared back at him with solemn ruby eyes.

He moved to the next cursed object on his list, calm settling in his chest as the scent of lemongrass filled the air. For the next hour or so he focused on the ceramic jewelry box, a delicate white with painted on roses. The curse knot within was more complicated than the one on the ring, and just as fragile as the box itself. Curse breaking was dangerous business; if you tug on the wrong thread or pull too hard, it could lash out at you. 

The chime of the bell above the door pulled him out of his trance. A teenager no older than himself had just stepped inside, all long limbs and tanned skin. Short brown hair curled at his forehead; blue eyes roamed the shop, taking in the line of cacti and succulents under the front window and the rows of mahogany bookshelves. As Keith watched he rolled his shoulders, adjusting the backpack slung over one of them.

“Can I help you?” Keith asked, tapping his fingers on the counter. He couldn’t decide if he was glad for the break or irritated at the interruption.

The boy, finally noticing him, grinned and stepped up the counter. The wooden floor groaned and creaked under his sneakers. 

“Hi, I’m Lance.” he began, clearly not shy with strangers in the least. “A lady named Allura recommended this place to me, said you’d know her.”

Keith hummed at the back of his throat, narrowing his eyes at this ‘Lance’. He didn’t look fatigued or sick, usually the first sign of someone who’d been cursed. But sure, whatever, maybe he’s just good at hiding it.

“Yeah, we know her, she told us you’d be showing up. Just a second.”

He scooped up the jewelry box he’d been working on and ducked down for a moment to stow it beneath the counter. He turned towards the hallway once he was done.

“Hey, Shiro, client’s here.” He called. 

“Ok, be out in a minute.” Shiro answered. 

“Hey, why do you only have cacti in here?” Lance asked, forcing Keith to pay attention to him. He was looking around the shop again with half interested eyes, leaning up against the counter like he owned the place. “I’d have thought you guys would use lots of different herbs.”

“We do.” Keith said, trying not to snap. “We just order them from a friend. Plants don’t like me very much.”

“Why not?” Lance glanced back at him, and Keith raised a hand, carefully setting his fingertips alight. Lance blinked once, then smiled. 

“Oh, that’s why. Fire magic.”

Keith grunted once in acknowledgment, lowering his hand and looking at the hallway impatiently. When was Shiro gonna get here? This guy was… well he wasn’t annoying, exactly. Just talkative. Not something Keith was comfortable with. Way too upbeat to be cursed, that’s for sure.

“And what’s with all the charms?” 

Once again Keith was forced to turn back to Lance, who was gesturing at the black cords wound around his wrists and throat. They bore various crystals and stones, some that glinted in the dim light of the shop and others that seemed to swallow it whole.

“Most are for protection.” he said shortly. “Curses are dangerous, they can lash out if you screw up.”

For some reason Lance’s brow furrowed, and he was just opening his mouth to speak again when Shiro finally showed up. He was taller and more muscular than Keith was, but his grey eyes were always kind, and the way his white puff of hair always got in his eyes made him look almost childish. He turned a soft smile to their customer the moment he stepped into the room.

“Hey, I’m Shiro.” he said in greeting, extending a hand over the counter. Lance shook it enthusiastically and introduced himself. Shiro gave him a gracious nod before turning to Keith.

“You good to take the counter?” Keith asked him, earning himself a clap on the shoulder.

“Take your time, Keith. I can handle it till close if I need to.”

“Wait wait wait, hold up.” Lance said, waving his hands in front of him. Keith shot him a look, barely keeping it from becoming a glare. “ _ You’re  _ the curse breaker?”

“Um, yes?” 

“You’re barely my age!”

Now Keith let himself scowl. “Yeah, and I’m also the best curse breaker in the city. Now do you wanna get your problem solved or not?”

Shiro nudged him. Keith ignored it. Lance frowned.

“Yeah, ok. I came all this way after all.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Alright, follow me then.”

He takes back what he said. Lance is  _ definitely  _ annoying. But he was a (presumably) paying customer, so he had to deal.

He led the other boy down the hallway. It was pretty short with only three doors, and Keith stopped in front of the one on the left. This one led to his workshop, while the one on the right side went to Shiro’s office. See, Keith was great at actually breaking curses. But the whole business side of things? Not so much. That’s where Shiro came in.

Unlike the rest of the shop, which Shiro insisted on keeping organized, his workshop was a cluttered mess. And Keith loved it. It was small and cozy, walls painted a warm red. There was a line of thin windows just below the ceiling on the rightmost wall, the only source of natural light in the room. The other three walls were lined with shelves at the same level, stacked full of books. These were different from the ones in the front of the shop; these were older, thicker, wrapped in soft leather and bound with care. 

Keith waved an indifferent hand towards the left corner, behind the door. 

“Go ahead and sit down, I just need to track down something…”

Lance stood still for a long moment, eyeing the small seating area warily. It wasn’t much: an overstuffed armchair shoved in the corner, a black leather desk chair across from it, separated from each other by a worn coffee table covered in books and slips of paper and empty mugs. Lance eventually chose to sit in the armchair, sinking back into the cushions. 

Keith didn’t notice his hesitation. He was across the room at his workbench, pushed up against the wall with the windows. It was a fairly large table, but between the jars of herbs, the crystals, the mortar and pestle, and a million other miscellaneous objects there was barely an inch of clear space. Still, he found his notebook relatively quickly. 

When he turned back, Lance wasn’t looking at him. He was glancing around the room, taking in the sight of the altar against the wall across from the door. It was the one clean part of the whole space with it’s carefully arranged candles, simple white incense holder, and the clear floor within the circle painted on with red paint. Sigils in the same paint looped around the outside of the ring.

Keith dropped carelessly into the leather chair, disregarding Lance’s lack of attention. In fact, while he was scoping out the room, he could get the first feel for the curse he was working against. Reaching out with his magic, he wasn’t surprised to find the dark energy radiating from Lance’s body. If he’d gone to the doctor, he was probably the one cursed, not one of his belongings. 

Before he could investigate much more, Lance made a funny kind of squeaking sound, breaking him out of his trance. The other boy was still not looking at him, instead staring off to his left at a cubby a few feet from him. This particular cubby had several cupboards stacked haphazardly on top of it and was filled with whatever random junk Keith didn’t have room for anywhere else. Specifically, Lance was eyeing the box of band-aids he kept on the bottom shelf. 

His eyes flicked up back towards the altar, and Keith mentally kicked himself. Usually he remembered to put the dagger away before he had clients come in. It tended to stand out, a dramatically different shape from the prep knives he kept on the workbench, and most people put two and two together. Just like Lance apparently had.

“Do you do blood magic?” Lance asked. His voice was a little steadier than it had been a moment ago, but Keith didn’t need Shiro’s emotion magic to feel his anxiety. 

Blood magic wasn’t banned. The only type of magic that was completely illegal was necromancy, but shadow and blood magic were so closely associated with it they both carried a heavy taboo. One Lance clearly wasn’t comfortable with. 

“Not very often.” Keith grumbled in admission. “Only when a curse needs an extra kick to undo. Don’t worry, I won’t use it on you.”

He looked back down at his notebook, tapping his pen against his cheekbone. He just wanted to figure out what was wrong with this guy and get him out of his shop.

“So why’d you go see Allura?”

Lance leaned back against the cushions again, a little more relaxed after being reassured he wouldn’t be having blood magic used on him. 

“I’ve been feeling really tired the last few days, getting headaches, you know? I wouldn’t have worried about it, but I haven’t been able to feel my magic, either.”

That made Keith’s eyebrows rise. 

“Really? Not at all?”

“Nope. No vibes, no auras, not the slightest bit of anything.” Lance’s brow furrowed, looking indescribably frustrated, and Keith could understand why. Magic tended to sputter out a bit after heavy use, but even after some of his more spectacular fuck ups it only dimmed, not disappeared completely, and it only lasted a few hours. Not days. 

For a moment he entertained the idea that his customer was exaggerating, but quickly dismissed the thought. Allura wouldn’t have sent him if he hadn’t really had something wrong with him.

“How long is a few days, exactly?”

“Three. Started Monday morning.”

“Hm.” Keith leaned back, tapping his pen against his lip and studying Lance carefully. Lance stared back, expression dark and serious. “Well, I’ve never heard of any curse blocking someones magic before. I could get a better feel for it if I could touch. Is that alright?”

Lance blinked in surprise. “Uh, yeah, sure, I guess.”

Keith gestured for him to stand and led him to the center of the room, leaving his notebook on the coffee table. Lance seemed genuinely uncomfortable when Keith turned to face him and reached out to touch his chest.

“Should I, uh, take my shirt off?” He waggled his eyebrows in a pathetic attempt to lighten the mood. Keith rolled his eyes. 

“No, this is fine. It might feel a little funny for you, though.”

Keith’s fingers brushed up against the soft texture of Lance’s shirt, and he closed his eyes. His magic pushed forward, a red line illuminating the dark void. Usually it wouldn’t be this way, it would be lit up with the other person’s magic. But Lance’s was completely missing. 

Keith had been expecting the curse knot to be waiting for him in front of Lance’s heart, where most appeared when a person was cursed. It wasn’t where he thought it would be, making him frown as he continued forward. Just a few moments later…

_ There.  _

Shit.

The curse knot wasn’t in front of his heart. It was wrapped  _ around  _ it, expanding and retracting in time with the organs beats. It had countless strands of shadow magic, all tangling and weaving together to form one of the most complex knots he’d ever seen. And on top of it all, it felt  _ disgusting.  _

Most curses felt a little dirty, a little uncomfortable, but this thing was just plain evil. Felt like swimming through oil, pressing over his skin in a film and tasting of bile on his tongue. He’d never felt anything like this before. 

Then, just for a second, he felt a brush of something. It felt like cool rushing water, like snow drifting gently to the earth on Christmas Eve, like rain pattering on the roof. It felt like the color blue. And in the next second it was gone, being pulled away and swallowed whole by the spider's web coiled around Lance’s heart. He followed it instinctively, grabbing hold of a random thread and pulling. 

The whole knot pulsed and spat out a burst of power so strong it knocked Keith out of his trance and flat on his ass. 

The curse continued to cling to him. His crystals throbbed against his skin as they fought it back, and after a long moment it finally receded, leaving him more than a little stunned and still on the floor. It took him another moment to realize Lance was kneeling in front of him. His thin hands hovered awkwardly over Keith’s shoulders, unsure of whether to touch or not.

“Dude, are you ok? What the hell-”

Keith knocked one of his hands to the side. “I’m fine. Hand me my notebook.”

With no other course of action available to him, Lance obeyed, and Keith began sketching out the image of the curse knot before he forgot what it looked like.

Lance managed to keep his mouth shut while Keith drew, but the moment the pen stopped moving he was speaking again.

“So are you gonna tell me anything or just leave me here to suffer in ignorance?”

Keith shoved his bangs out of his eyes and clambered to his feet, already moving on to the next task even as he began his explanation. 

“Curses are like knots,” he began, crossing the room to his workbench. He’d given this speech so many times he could recite it without thinking. “Each kind of curse has its own distinct shape, and you have to pull on the right thread with just the right amount of force to break it.” He jabbed a finger at the page of his notebook. “This is what yours looks like.”

The floor creaked as Lance came closer, and his sharp inhale felt like it was right in Keith’s ear.

“That thing has - like - twenty sides!”

“I’ve seen worse.” Ok, so technically that was a lie, but Lance seemed to relax a little, so Keith figured it was worth it. “I was wrong about a few things, though. For one, the curse isn’t in front of your heart. It’s around it, all tangled up.”

“What?” Lance squeaked, but Keith just kept talking. He was thinking out loud now, almost forgetting the other boy was in the room at all. 

“And it’s not just blocking your magic. It’s siphoning it, taking it and sending it somewhere else. Don’t know where, or why. I haven’t seen this curse before, I’ll have to do some research.”

He stopped talking abruptly and looked up at Lance properly for the first time since he came out of his trance. He was about ten shades paler than he’d been before, eyes wide and clearly struggling not to freak out. 

“Can you come back tomorrow after the shop closes? Around 7?”

Lance blinked, overwhelmed. “Yeah, sure. Anything to get, ya know, uncursed.”

Keith nodded and took a breath. The initial rush of  _ danger, confusion, explain, solve, fix  _ was starting to fade out now, and he could finally feel himself slowing again. His fingertips trembled from the adrenaline as he selected a couple of crystals from the table before him.

“Here, keep these on you.” he shoved the stones into Lance’s hands. “They should help slow the drain of magic. And one more thing.” 

Brandishing a silver sharpie, he grabbed Lance’s arm and shoved up a sleeve. Lance flinched at the first touch of the cold marker, and Keith snapped at him to hold still while he carefully drew on the sigil.

“There.” he said in a satisfied voice when he’d finished, capping the marker. “That should help too.”

Lance continued to stand there, crystals clenched in one hand and still looking utterly terrified despite his best efforts. Keith wasn’t the best with people, but he figured he had to say  _ something  _ before he broke down completely.

“Hey,” he murmured in a softer voice, laying a hand on Lance’s shoulder. His eyes zeroed in on him, and Keith realized they were the same color as his magic. “You’re gonna be ok. I’ve  _ never  _ met a curse I couldn’t break. This one will just require some extra effort.”

Lance drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second. When he opened them again the motion was accompanied by a plastered on grin. 

“It’s cool. I’m fine.”

Keith had told that lie often enough to recognize it when he heard it, but he could also recognize when the person telling it didn’t want to be pushed. Putting on false confidence was probably how Lance dealt with scary situations, and far be it from him to undermine that strategy. 

So Keith just gave a small smile and nodded. 

“So just come back tomorrow, and hopefully by then I’ll have this thing figured out.”

“Ok. How much do I owe you?”

Keith waved off the question, already studying the spines of his books and considering which ones he should begin his search in.

“Don’t worry about that yet. We can talk about it once I break the curse.”

“Oh. Ok. Thanks. I guess.”

Keith glanced back over his shoulder. Lance was tense, licking his lips and flicking his eyes around the room nervously, and Keith didn’t blame him. Not being able to feel your magic for three days and then finding out you had a curse tangled around your heart would make anyone a bit awkward. 

“Before you go,” said Keith, crooking his finger at a book on a shelf across the room. It sailed easily into his palm. “Do you have any idea who would’ve cursed you? A bitter girlfriend? Vindictive coworker?”

Lance shook his head, watching with just a hint of envy as Keith called a few more books to him. 

“No, I’ve got no clue. Unless someone’s really pissed at me and I just don’t know.”

“Hmmm.” 

Keith pushed past his client with an armful of books, not noticing the strange look he got when he deposited them in the center of the floor. He then promptly dropped to sit next to the pile, crossing his legs and reaching back to redo his ponytail. He was very much aware of how strange he looked, but he always felt more focused sitting on the floor when he worked. 

“You should chat with Shiro on your way out.” he said to Lance absentmindedly, pulling a thick tome into his lap. “He likes getting to know the customers.”

“Um, ok.” His footsteps crossed behind Keith as he retrieved his backpack from by the armchair. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

“Mm-hmmm.” Keith was already buried deep into his book, comparing various known curse knots to his drawing. He barely noticed when Lance left the room. 

He easily fell into the rhythm of research; the turn of pages, the scent of ancient paper and ink, the slight ache of his neck from looking down for too long. By the time Shiro came looking for him he had five books spread in a semi circle in front of him and he was rocking back and forth, another one of his habits when he focused. His ears detected the creak of the floor behind him, but his brain didn’t comprehend what it meant. 

“Keith?”

Keith stretched his arms over his head, feeling his back pop. The charms he wore clinked softly at the motion. 

“Hey, Shiro.” A yawn tore through his jaw, and he just then noticed how his eyes were burning. “What time is it?”

Shiro’s chuckle was endearing. “About eleven.”

Keith whirled to face his older brother, who just looked at him with a practiced smirk. This wasn’t the first time Keith had gotten caught up in research and lost track of time, but his cheeks burned all the same. 

“Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to make you close by yourself.”

Shiro just shook his head at him and took a few steps into the room. 

“Nah, it’s fine. Have you figured out what’s wrong with Lance yet?”

Keith turned back to his books with a sigh, rubbing his forehead. A dull headache throbbed behind his eyes. 

“Not yet. I know the curse is siphoning his magic somewhere else, and I know what the knot looks like, but I haven’t been able to figure out which curse it is or how it works.”

“You’ll figure it out.” Shiro said, not a hint of doubt in his voice. “But not tonight. You need to go to bed.”

Keith groaned, but didn’t argue when Shiro grabbed his arm and helped him onto his stiff legs. He was right, as usual. He would be using a lot of energy working with Lance tomorrow and the last thing he needed was to collapse while doing curse work. 

Shiro led him back through the dark shop towards the corner staircase. The old familiar wood groaned as they mounted the steps, up to their little apartment on the second floor. It hadn’t seen much use when their parents were alive; the family lived in a house a few miles away. The two brothers chose to move into the apartment when they took over the shop. Half a year later, Shiro’s fiance Allura joined them. 

The woman herself was sitting at the kitchen counter when they got there, three steaming mugs in front of her. The light caught her silver hair where it tumbled down her back, and she turned when she heard them approaching, a soft smile on her lips. Honestly Keith was surprised to see her still awake. Her schedule at the clinic was demanding, and whenever she was home she was normally passed out asleep. But now she hardly looked tired as she held out a mug to Keith.

He took it with a grateful expression, standing at the end of the counter while Shiro settled in next to her and pressed a kiss to her cheek. The smell wafting through the kitchen said chamomile tea and something in his chest thrummed in response to the scent. Their mother had passed away two years ago, but in moments like these he could almost imagine her standing there still.

Allura said his name, and Keith jolted back into reality to see her sharp sapphire eyes watching him over the rim of her mug.

“Did you see that client I called about?” she asked. 

“I did.” answered Keith, setting his mug down to run a hand through his hair. “This curse, it’s… really complicated.”

“Ah, so I was right. He  _ is  _ cursed.”

“Yeah. I don’t know much for sure, but it felt pretty nasty.” He couldn’t stop the small shudder that went through his shoulders when he remembered the oily feel of the curse. Shiro felt the ripple of unease and brushed his magic against Keith’s, a light gray touch meant to soothe. 

“You can say that again.” Allura’s expression was stormy. “I’m not even that attuned to shadow magic and even I could feel it the moment he walked in.”

“He seems to be holding up well enough.” Shiro commented, swirling his tea around. “I could feel how scared he was, but he still put on a brave face.”

Keith took a large gulp of the tea. It was still hot and scalded a little on the way down, but he dismissed the brief pain. His exhaustion was beginning to catch up with him. 

He finished his drink quickly after that, bidding Shiro and Allura good night before retreating to his room. 

The furniture from the old house fit in the small space, but only just. The old rickety dresser in one corner, a bookshelf with his oldest and most fragile books in another, and the twin bed with scorch marks on the headboard shoved against the wall. The sigils painted on the walls and the charms he wore kept the nightmares at bay these days, but back when Shiro’s family had first adopted him as a scared twelve year old he’d started more than a few accidental fires in the middle of the night. 

He sighed as he changed into his pajamas, caught up in memory and nostalgia. The first few days had been rough; he’d hid in his closet and spat embers at anyone who came too close. But Shiro’s family was patient with him, and on the third night his new mother had made him a satchel full of lavender and lemongrass and tucked it under the pillow that was meant to be his. He’d climbed into the bed just out of curiosity, and had slept peacefully for the first time in years. 

He returned to that same bed now, pulling the old familiar blanket up to his neck and curling into a loose ball on his side. For a few minutes he mused, mostly about Lance and his mysterious curse, but it didn’t take long for him to fall into slumber.

* * *

Keith took it easy the next day. Well, by his standards at least. He broke the curse on the jewelry box and moved on to a few more items in his line up. Word of his curse breaking prowess had grown over time, and now he rarely ran out of things to work on. 

But today he restrained himself to simple items, easy curses he could dispel with little effort. Even then Shiro had to remind him to take breaks.

By the time Lance showed up Keith’s magic was itching under his skin, desperate to be used. Flames wanted to wreathe themselves around his fingertips and embers crackled, but he firmly shoved the heat down. He couldn’t burn Lance. 

“Hey there, Mullet.” Lance greeted with a cheeky grin as he entered the shop. The bell above his head chimed and Keith narrowed his eyes. Keith’s hair was down at the moment the way it rarely was, and  _ that  _ particular comment probably guaranteed he wouldn’t let it be that way around Lance anymore. 

Despite Lance’s smile, Keith could tell he wasn’t doing well. His skin was paler than it had been the day before, the bags under his eyes more pronounced. But for the moment he pushed all of that aside.

“Hi Lance.”

“So, ready to get me uncursed?” Lance said, sidling up to the counter in front of Keith, who responded with an eyeroll.

“That  _ is  _ my job, isn’t it?” Keith glanced down at where Lance leaned against the counter and frowned. He had something in his hand; the crystals Keith had given him the day before. They were dull, didn’t sparkle in the light anymore. 

“You burned those out already?” 

Lance’s smile faltered, but he propped it back up and nodded. 

That didn’t make sense. Those crystals should’ve lasted him a week at the least. He’d known the curse was powerful after his experience with it yesterday, but this powerful… Well, the more he found out about this curse, the less he liked it. Still he shoved away his anxiety and doubts for Lance’s sake.

“Remind me to grab you some more before you leave.” Was all he said about it before turning to lead the other boy back to his workshop, pulling his hair back as he did. Lance followed, initially going towards to the seating area again before Keith stopped him.

“No, we’re working over here today.” Keith gestured to his small altar, and Lance noticeably lost a few more shades of color in his face. But he didn’t say anything, he just let his backpack drop to the floor and shuffled to stand within the line of red paint. Keith brushed past him to begin lighting the candles on the altar; white, for protection.

“So, why the change in locale?” Lance was trying to keep his voice light, and Keith didn’t look back. 

“This is where I work on particularly nasty curses. To keep them contained in case I fuck up.” He lightly blew out the flame on the stick of incense he held, his nose wrinkling as the itchy smell of juniper filled it. 

“Nasty huh?”

The fear was obvious.

“All of this is probably a bit over the top.” Keith admitted, finally turning to face Lance. “It’s more for you than for the curse. I don’t want to hurt you if I do the wrong thing.”

Lance stared down at the floor with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets.

“Thought you were the best.” he mumbled, just a hint of a tease in his words. “But you seem awfully nervous.”

“Not nervous, cautious.” Keith corrected. “Curses are serious business. Now hurry up and sit on the altar.”

Now Lance looked up, eyebrow quirked. 

“Sit on it? Uh, aren’t altars usually, I don’t know,  _ not  _ for asses?”

“Yes genius but we’re going to be here awhile and I need you to be still. Just do it.”

Lance quirked his mouth, but did as he was told, slinking past Keith to perch anxiously on the edge of the altar. 

“Relax.” Keith said, stepping closer and poking at his chest. “I’m the one doing the work here. All you gotta do is sit still.”

“Yeah, ok, sure.” Keith waited for Lance to take a deep breath. Then he spread his palm over his heart, closed his eyes, and got to work.

* * *

The process was painstaking, to say the least. Keith had to crawl through every strand, tugging ever so gently and watching the knot’s reaction before moving onto the next one. Once he found one that didn’t spit ugly magic back at him when he pulled it, he steadily increased the pressure until it slid free. Then the whole process would repeat.

He had no idea how long he was in the trance. He could still feel his body, but so dimly and from so far away it hardly mattered. Despite the slow going he was definitely making progress- though the strands clung tighter to one another now they were being dragged away one by one. Just another layer or two and he would be at the center, where he could find the center knot, the one that held the whole thing together, and pull it apart. Just a little longer. 

_ “Hey, how long has he been at it?”  _

The voice echoed at him, bouncing through the void and only magnifying as it did. Keith furrowed his brow and tried to ignore it, successfully blocking out whatever answer there may have been to the question. Unfortunately the focus didn’t last- even as detached as he was he could feel someone touching his shoulder. His free hand came up to bat the person away even as his magic pressed forward against the knot once again, testing another cord. 

_ “Keith, come on, time for a break.” _

“No.” His voice sounded muffled to him, like it was coming through a solid sheet of ice. “I’m almost there.”

_ “You’re shaking. It’s time to stop.” _

A surge of grey magic went over him, blocking him from reaching out to the curse again. Irritated, he shook his way free of the trance, only for his knees to immediately wobble once he was in the real world again. Thankfully Shiro was there to catch his elbow. It took a moment before everything kicked in.

Every single muscle in his body trembled. Cold sweat was drying on the back of his neck. The incense had long since burned out, though the tall pillar candles still flickered cheerfully from behind Lance, who looked none the worse for wear. 

“Woah.” he mumbled, pressing a gloved hand to his forehead. He let Shiro steady him when he swayed. “How long has it been?”

“About three hours.” Lance answered with a small smile. “You’ve really been picking away at this curse, huh?”

Keith nodded, only just then noticing the plate balanced on Shiro’s other hand. He eyed the mug and the sandwich sitting on it, but spoke to Lance anyway.

“Yeah. I’m almost to the center I think.”

“But-” cut in Shiro, tugging on Keith’s arm, “You need to recharge first.” 

Keith let Shiro sit him down, right there on the floor, and plop the plate on his lap. He dug into the food with gusto, Lance sliding off the altar a moment later to sit in front of him. 

“Are you hungry Lance? I can get you something-”

Lance waved off Shiro’s offer. “Nah I’m fine. I haven’t been the one working.”

“Alright, let me know if you change your mind.” Shiro left the room, and Keith finished off his food while Lance fiddled with his phone. He sipped the tea a bit slower, sighing as it soothed his frayed nerves. He hadn’t noticed it till now but his magic really was running on fumes- felt like static buzzing between his fingers. 

“Are you going to be ok to keep going?” Lance asked, drawing Keith from his reverie. “You don’t have to finish tonight.”

Keith took a final drink of the tea and set the mug aside. “I’ll be fine. Just a few more minutes. Here, scoot closer.” 

Lance gave him a strange look, but did as he was told, and seemed to relax when Keith reached out to touch him again. This was pushing his limits, Keith knew that, but he was  _ so close _ , he just couldn’t resist.

Lance’s heart was beating beneath the knot, having grown steadily louder in the void as Keith had picked away the strands. Now the steady drumming helped keep him patient as he searched for the breaking point.

There. Just had to pull this string a little tighter, just a little…

The strand slipped free and electrifying purple coated Keith’s vision. 

He felt the attack in his magic more than his body, the shields he’d thrown up fizzling away as the force threw him; out of the circle and clear across the room. 

His back smashed against the opposite wall but he didn’t feel it. He wasn’t out of his trance yet, the curse was holding him there. Where there had once been purple there was now red. Dark red, blood red, dripping and coating everything, filling up the void like an ocean-

He jolted out of the trance gasping like he’d almost drowned. Shiro had appeared beside him and he clung to his brothers arm without a second thought. Lance was in front of him, blue eyes snapping with fear and concern, and his face was framed by pillars of slim fire. 

_ The candles,  _ Keith thought dimly.  _ They’re reacting to me, I have to calm down. _

A blanket of grey descended over his mind, Shiro’s magic calming and soothing. The candles began to die down as Keith’s breaths came slower. But he wasn’t completely calm, not yet.

“Lance.” he said hoarsely. “Who cursed you?”

Lance’s brow furrowed, some of the worry in his gaze dimming. 

“What? I already told you I don’t know-”

“Don’t lie to me.” Keith pushed himself to his feet, shoving Shiro away. Lance rose as well, meeting him eye to eye.

“Look, I’m not going to judge you, I just need to know. You owe somebody money? Get involved with someone you shouldn’t have?”

“No!” Lance snapped, one hand raking anxiously through his hair. “Dude I swear to god I have no fucking idea, ok? Why are you freaking out? What the hell just  _ happened? _ ”

Keith paused for a breath, noticing the candles on the altar were flaring again. He himself was having trouble coming to terms with what he’d realized, but there could be no doubt. He was certain.

“Whoever put this curse on you sealed it. With blood magic.”

Lance went dead pale and clapped a hand over his mouth like he was trying not to be sick. Shiro reached out and put a hand on Keith’s shoulder, releasing another wave of calming magic, and it wasn’t until then that Keith felt the bruise forming where his spine had hit the wall. God, no wonder the curse was so strong.

“I didn’t know people could do that.” Shiro murmured, sweat beading his forehead as he used his magic to calm both Keith and Lance at the same time. 

“You can.” Keith answered, voice much softer. “It just- no one does it. I’ve never seen it before, only read about it. No one in their right mind would ever do this.”

“Why?” Lance spoke up, finally taking his hand away from his mouth. He was still trembling and pale, but clearly Shiro’s magic was starting to have an effect. “Why does no one do it?”

“Because it… it binds the curse to the life force of the caster.” Keith pushed his sweaty bangs off of his forehead, mind racing. He’d have to check his older books, find out what spell this was, if there was another way to break it, what would happen to Lance if he couldn’t. 

“What does that mean for  _ me,  _ though?”

Keith’s knees shook a little, and Shiro noticed. 

“Alright, hold on. Why don’t you two come over here and sit down, ok?” 

Keith reluctantly allowed Shiro to pull him over to the sitting area. He sank down into the cushions of the armchair, still lost in thought as Lance perched himself on the edge of the other chair. He could feel the anxious way Shiro’s magic was pressing at him, searching for injury, and he thought reassurances to him.

“What it means,” he began thoughtfully, “At least according to theory, is that the curse won’t be able to be broken without killing the caster.” Lance blanched again, and Keith raced to finish his statement. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s our only option. I’ve never seen it myself, so there might be another way. There are other things we can try. Maybe once I figure out which curse it is I’ll know how to take it apart.” 

“Ok.” Lance’s voice was dull. He was going into shock Keith supposed.

“Hey,” he said softly, pulling himself from his own thoughts to confront Lance’s. “I need you to do something for me. I need to know anything that might help. Anything. Dreams, omens,  _ anything _ .”

For a moment Lance’s expression was unchanged. Then his brow furrowed.

“Well, I did have a sorta weird dream last night.”

“Tell me about it.”

Shiro was watching this interaction with growing concern, gripping Keith’s shoulder tightly. He was worried about Keith’s strength, but for the moment Keith disregarded it. This was important. 

“It wasn’t much. It was just a black void, and a voice, talking to me. Didn’t say much, just the same thing over and over. ‘The In Between’, it said.”

Keith’s eyebrows rocketed to his hairline. 

“The In Between? You’re certain?”

“Yeah.” Lance chewed anxiously on his thumb nail while Keith sank back into his thoughts.

“What’s going on, Keith?” Shiro prodded gently, able to sense Lance’s growing apprehension. “What’s it mean?” Shiro was fairly educated in the ways of magic, maybe even slightly above average, but he had nowhere near as much knowledge of curses as Keith did. There was a reason Keith was the curse breaker and not him.

“The In Between is a kind of liminal space.” Keith explained while staring above Lance’s head and into nothing. “Dream walkers go there sometimes. They say that’s where dreams come from. But there’s a theory, an unconfirmed one, that curses come from there too.”

“How?” Mumbled Lance, spurring Keith’s musings along.

“Like I said it’s unconfirmed, but some people think to cast a curse you have to make a deal with an entity in the In Between. It weaves the curse for you, and in return you pay with a bit of your soul. How big depends on how nasty the curse is. Sometimes it so little it’s not even noticeable, other times, not so much. But those pieces of souls get stuck there, and end up twisting into more of the beings that weave the curses, and the cycle continues.” 

Keith paused and drummed his fingers against his cheekbones. The bags under his eyes looked like bruises. 

“But even if that theory is correct, it doesn’t explain why someone would blood seal a curse on you, or who would want to curse you in the first place, or how to break it.” He sighed heavily. “I guess we just need to keep trying to identify it, and maybe that’ll lead us to the caster.”

“I have a friend who does dream magic.” Lance supplied with the tiniest smile, though he still looked shaken. “His mom’s are dream walkers, have their own practice. I could ask him about the In Between, if it’d help.”

“Yeah, do that.” Keith hummed. “Actually, can you just bring him with you next time so I can talk to him?”

“Sure, when’s next time?”

“Tomorrow. I don’t know what this curse is doing to you and I don’t want to waste time.” With that Keith got to his feet, once again disregarding Shiro’s fussing as he went over to his work table.

“Come here, let me give you more crystals. And if you have any more dreams, tell me.”

“Aye aye captain.” Lance answered in a watery voice. 

“Ok, great we came to a decision.” Shiro interrupted. “But Keith, you need to rest. Now. No arguments. You know the way out don’t you, Lance?”

Lance nodded, and Keith hissed through his teeth as Shiro dragged him out of his workshop.

* * *

Shiro could force him to sleep that night, but he couldn’t stop him from getting up in the morning and immediately pulling his oldest tomes off of his bedroom bookshelf. By the time Shiro came to check if he was awake he was on the floor, hair pulled back and surrounded by a small pile of books so old they almost crumbled in his hands. 

“I figured I’d find you like this.” Shiro sighed, feet creaking over the wood floor. “Brought you breakfast.”

“Hmmmm.” Keith hummed distractedly. “Thanks Shiro.”

His brother knelt down next to him, setting down a bowl of cereal and a glass of juice before pausing and looking over Keith’s shoulder. 

“Find anything?”

Keith tapped a page thoughtfully, chewing on his lip.

“Maybe? This curse seems fairly similar. It’s just really rare and  _ really  _ hard to cast and I can’t think of any reason someone would go through this much trouble to curse Lance, of all the people in the world. And the extra effort of sealing it? Doesn’t make sense.”

Shiro settled down into a sitting position. Keith always thought better when he spoke out loud, and Shiro was happy to prod him along with questions.

“Do you know what the curse’s purpose is? What it’ll do once it’s run its course?”

“The book says its meant to drain power from one person to another, to make the caster more powerful. Doesn’t say how long it lasts or what happens to the victim if they run out of magic.”

Keith’s mouth twisted in frustration, one hand tugging on his ponytail. 

“There’s so little information.” he murmured to himself. “It’s fuckin’ infuriating.”

“Maybe you should call Pidge.” Shiro suggested. “Have her look and see if anyone else has suffered from this recently.”

“Yeah.” Keith said dimly, still pulling on his hair. “Good idea.”

“What is it?” Shiro could feel his anxiety rolling off of him like heat waves. Keith finally looked at him, an uneasy expression plastered over his face. 

“I don’t know.” he admitted. “I just… I have a really bad feeling. It’s so malevolent.” He released his hair only to begin rubbing at one of the charms wrapped around his wrist. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

Shiro released a calming pulse of his magic, waiting for Keith’s shoulders to lose some of their tension before nudging the bowl of cereal closer to him. 

“Here, you eat, I’ll go call Pidge.”

“Wait-  _ fuck _ , what about the shop?” Shiro felt it like a needle when Keith’s anxiety spiked again. “What time is it?”

“Closed today.” Shiro answered, laying a comforting hand on Keith’s knee. “This thing with Lance is pretty serious; you need to focus on that completely.”

Keith just buried his head in his hands with another muffled curse. He wouldn’t have needed his magic to feel the exhaustion rolling off of him.

“Didn’t sleep well?”

“No. Well, I mean, yes, I guess.” Keith raised his head, staring blankly at the far wall while fiddling with his charms again. “No nightmares, but I could feel them trying to come. Pushing, ya know?”

“I’ll make you a sachet tonight.” Shiro said before shoving the cereal bowl yet again. “Eat. Now.”

“Thanks, Shiro.” Keith murmured. His mind was still elsewhere. “What would I do without you?”

Shiro just gave his little brothers hair an affectionate ruffle on his way out of the room.

* * *

By the time Pidge arrived several hours later Keith was up and presentable, inserting a stick of his favorite lemongrass incense into his lion incense burner. The bell above the door chimed, and when he turned the short teenage girl was standing in front of the counter making a face.

“Do you own any other incense?” she asked with a fake-irritated expression. “The same thing gets boring.”

Keith leaned up against the counter. “When you own a shop, you can pick the incense.” he deadpanned. 

Pidge stuck her tongue out at him. She had her usual dark bags under her eyes and slightly sickly pallor to her fair skin that said she’d been up too late, as per usual. But somehow she didn’t see the irony when she looked Keith up and down. 

“You look like shit.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Gee, thanks Pidge. I love my wonderfully supportive friend.”

She sidled up to the counter and tossed her backpack up onto it. 

“This curse is really taking it out of you, huh? Shiro said it was serious, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“I’m fine, Pidge. Did you find anything?”

“I did, but it’s not an answer, and it’ll probably just make things worse if I’m being honest.” 

“Great.” Keith groaned. “Let’s go to my workshop. I have a feeling we’ll be here awhile.”

“Alright, but you owe me coffee.” Pidge answered with a shrug, picking up her backpack again. 

“With as many espresso shots as you want.” promised Keith as she followed him into the back hallway. 

The workshop floor was the perfect space to set up Pidge’s heavy duty laptop and Keith’s semi circle of papers and books, but right as Pidge was about to start explaining what she’d found Shiro stuck his head into the room. 

“Hey, Pidge, you made it.” he said in way of greeting. Pidge flapped a hand at him. “How’s Matt?”

Pidge’s family ran the green house Keith and Shiro ordered all of their herbs from. Shiro had been close friends with her older brother for most of their childhood, but they hadn’t had a lot of time to see each other lately. Shiro made a point of asking about him every time Pidge came around. 

“Up to his elbows in dirt, as usual.” Pidge answered wryly. The Holt family was known for their strong green magic, so no one knew where Pidge got her affinity for tech magic. Still, it was useful when Keith’s books didn’t have the answers he needed. 

Shiro joined them on the floor of the workshop, leaning his elbows on his knees. 

“What did you find out?”

“So, it took a while,” Pidge began, shoving a clump of auburn hair behind her ear, “but Allura gave me access to her hospital records which sped up the process considerably. Over the last six months, four people had been hospitalized because of illness caused by magic drainage.”

“Well, that’s good for us.” interjected Shiro. “We can go track one of them down and ask how they broke the curse.”

Pidge’s mouth twisted when she shook her head. “No, you can’t. They didn’t break it. All four of them died within two weeks of being admitted.”

Shiro went quiet. Keith did the opposite. 

“Shit.” he swore, a spark or two flying from his fingertips before he got a hold of himself. “So if I don’t figure this out, Lance could die.”

Shiro laid a hand on his knee, accompanied by a wave of calming magic. 

“Did any of the victims have anything in common?” he asked. “Something that could lead us to the caster?”

“I can look, but it’ll take a bit. Lemme see your notes, Keith.”

He obediently handed them over, his mind already somewhere else. This whole situation had just gotten a lot more stressful than it had been before. Lance’s life was in his hands; he was Keith’s responsibility now. And if his last ditch effort didn’t work, he might have to track down the caster and kill them to save him. Trade a life for a life. Was he capable of that? Was he ready? Hell, was it even  _ right?  _

“Chill out, Keith.” Shiro’s voice brought him back to the real world, where Pidge’s fingers tapped at the speed of light over her keyboard and his brother watched him with a soft look on his face. Pidge glanced up, but said nothing as Shiro continued to speak.

“No one is going to blame you if you can’t break the curse.” he murmured, hand still on Keith’s knee. “And no one is expecting you to do anything extreme.”

_ He means killing the caster.  _

“I can’t just let him die.” Keith answered through gritted teeth. Flames licked at the pads of his fingers. He wasn’t angry at Shiro; he was just confused. Thank God for Shiro’s emotion magic which let him know. 

Shiro didn’t have an answer for that, so he didn’t say anything. The silence stretched on, only punctured by Pidge’s typing, until eventually she sat back and flicked the screen in irritation.

“You guys really owe me.” she groaned, pushing her glasses back up her nose. “This was a royal pain in my ass.”

“But did you find anything?” said Keith, a little more sharply than he’d intended. Pidge didn’t seem to mind.

“I did. It took a  _ lot  _ of digging, but I eventually found something all four of them had in common. They all had luck magic.”

Keith’s brows pulled together. Luck magic was… well, not rare exactly, but pretty uncommon and difficult to use. Most people who had it never mastered using it. And now someone was prowling the city, casting curses on those who wielded it and killing them in the process. 

“Does Lance have luck magic?” Shiro asked him, and Keith had to shrug. 

“I don’t know, I never asked. I can when he shows up today, though.”

“Hey, Keith?” Pidge was frowning down at his notebook. “What’s all the stuff in here about the In Between?”

“It was just something Lance mentioned. A dream he had. I figure it’s a good starting place if my last method doesn’t work or if Lance won’t do it.”

Shiro leveled a heavy look at him. “You’re going to use blood magic to try to break the seal?”

“I’m going to  _ try _ .” Keith corrected. “If Lance lets me. He didn’t seem too jazzed about the idea when we first met.”

“Just… be careful. Blood magic is-”

“Shiro, I know. I’m the one who uses it, remember?”

Shiro was silent. 

* * *

An hour or so passed. Pidge kept searching, using Keith’s notes to look for some other method of breaking the curse and blood sealed curses in general. Keith did the same in his books, but he wasn’t finding much. Shiro sat with them, sending out calming pulses of magic whenever he felt Keith getting too keyed up. 

All of them looked up at each other with raised eyebrows when the bell chimed from the other room. After a moments hesitance, Keith climbed to his feet and went to check who had just walked in.

It was Lance, early and smiling about it. Accompanying him was another boy that was nearly twice his size, dark skinned with black hair and kind eyes that reminded him of Shiro. 

“You’re early.” was all Keith said as he leaned up against the back wall. He reached back to pull his hair up, not wanting another facetious mullet comment. 

Lance turned to him with a smirk. “Yeah, Hunk here got out of class early.” 

The boy behind him gave Keith a shy wave, which Keith returned with a nod. 

“It’s fine. More time to work.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Fragment Sentences.” Lance’s grin was cheeky, but there was a slight strain to it that didn’t escape Keith’s notice.

_ He must be feeling worse, he’s laying it on pretty thick today.  _

“So, find out anything new about my mysterious ailment?”

Keith bit his lip. “Yeah, but it’s not good.”

To his surprise, Lance sobered immediately. It was much easier to see how tired he was when he stopped smiling. 

“What is it?”

Keith flicked his eyes at Hunk, who was watching the two of them anxiously. For a moment he considered asking him to leave the room, but if Lance hadn’t asked him to yet it probably wasn’t Keith’s place to do so. He sighed.

“We looked up some medical records.” he said, rubbing one of his charms on his wrist. “Four other people have died from this.”

For a long second there was no reaction. Then Lance blinked and licked his lips.

“So its fatal then?”

“If I can’t find a way to break it, then yeah.”

Lance swayed on his feet, and Hunk reached out to steady him. Hunk’s eyes were already watering, well on his way to full blown tears at the thought of his friend dying. 

“Lance, what kind of magic do you have?”

Lance looked at him a little blearily. 

_ Probably in shock. _

“Uh, water magic. Weather. A little luck, but I don’t know how to use it.”

_ Damn _

“Why?”

“The only thing the other four victims had in common was that they all had luck magic.”

Lance grabbed hold of the counter with both hands and squeezed until his knuckles turned white. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly dark.

“Great. I’ve got a killing curse on me just because I have luck magic. Awesome.”

“Technically it’s not a killing curse.” Keith said, ignoring Lance’s glare. “The curse’s purpose is to drain your magic. The killing is a side effect.”

“Gee, thanks, that really makes me feel better.”

“It’s an important detail. Could help us figure out who the caster is if my last idea doesn’t work out.”

“And what is your last idea, exactly?”

Keith glanced over at Hunk, who still hadn’t spoken.

“Hunk, I have to talk to Lance alone. My brother and our friend are in my workshop, down this hall, first door on the left. Would you mind joining them for a few?”

Hunk shot his friend an anxious look. “Lance, is that ok with you?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Lance answered, waving a hand limply. “Go on.”

Hunk squeezed his shoulder before doing as he was told and disappearing into the hall. Lance waited for the sound of the workshop door closing before he spoke again.

“You want to use blood magic on me, don’t you?”

Keith sighed and straightened up, moving forward to lean on the counter across from Lance. The faintest bit of lemongrass still floated on the air, and he breathed it in to calm himself.

“Blood magic isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. It’s not inherently evil, it’s just using the power already in your body. What you do with it is up to the caster, and my magic will  _ never  _ hurt you. But it’s your choice. I won’t use it if you ask me not to.”

Lance bit his lip and said nothing. Keith couldn’t help but fidget a little. 

“Look, unless we dig up something else, you have two options right now. Try and break the curse with blood magic, or try and hunt down the caster.”

“What would you do if you found them?” Lance wouldn’t look at him. 

“Ask them to take the curse off. If they refused…”

“Dude, no. I won’t let you kill somebody for this. You could just call the cops.” 

Keith shook his head even though Lance still hadn’t raised his eyes. 

“Lance, not to be blunt or anything, but you don’t have time.”

Lance took a deep, deep, shuddering breath. Then he finally looked up, and Keith lost his breath at the sudden glint of determination in his eyes.

“Fine. Do the blood magic.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

* * *

Keith had forced everyone out of his workshop except for him and Lance. They were in front of the altar again, this time with red candles and the scent of cinnamon filling the air. Lance shifted anxiously on his feet. Nervous but not wanting to show it. 

“So, uh, does this require your blood or mine?” he asked, eyeing the dagger glinting ominously on the altar. 

“Just mine.” Keith assured. “It probably won’t feel that different from before for you.” He didn’t turn to see if his words had any effect. Instead he focused on his task, scooping up his ceremonial blade and touching the lovingly sharpened tip to his thumb. He barely had to press at all before a drop of blood was beading up. 

Keith set the knife aside and reached next for the tiny white ceramic bowl, squeezing the single droplet in, a neon splatter. When he turned back to face Lance, he was greeted with an expression of shock. 

“That’s it?” Lance asked, quirking an eyebrow. “I thought you were gonna slash open your palm or something.”

“Blood is powerful.” Keith said in way of explanation, trying his best to hide his amusement. “You don’t need very much. Now hold still.”

Reaching out with his clean hand, he pressed it to the usual place on Lance’s chest and closed his eyes. 

The curse was still anchored firmly in place around Lance’s heart. It had dug in its claws and wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon, not without a good deal of force. Thankfully that was exactly what Keith had brought along with him. 

The curse writhed, beating in and out, in and out with the motion of Lance’s heart. All of the shadowy layers had been tugged off and stripped away, leaving only the blood sealed inner strands. Every so often, when the whole thing moved just right, a flash of purple would show through. The magic of the caster, almost hidden by the seal.

Keith took a deep breath. His magic coiled in his gut, around and around like hot chains as he slowly boosted its strength with the power from his small well. He couldn’t rush this. His hope was to aim for the purple, the small openings in the seal, but he knew his aim wasn’t that good. Still, the force of the strike should be enough to shatter the seal.

Hopefully.

When he was ready, when he was certain there was nothing else he could do to prepare, he lined himself up with the curse knot. It clenched down on Lance a little harder, trying to hold on. 

Keith went at it with everything he had. 

Red clashed against red. Purple flared up in the curse in response, and the whole thing pulsed angrily. Keith kept pushing, pushing, trying to break through. 

_ Crack, come on, just crack already. _

It didn’t crack. The ball of darkness shuddered hard, and then Keith was falling, and he was covered in purple. 

Purple covered everything, he was drowning in the neon. He reached out desperately for a scrap of his own magic and thankfully found it, red and orange swirling around him like fire and beating back the casters magic. 

Normally after something like this he would come out of the trance slowly, giving himself time to burn and scrape away every last iota of the offending magic. But this time he was jolted out of it rather painfully by a sharp sensation in his wrists and throat. When his eyes popped open, the workshop wasn’t any less chaotic than the void he’d just come from.

Somehow he’d ended up sitting on the floor, though still within the red circle. The ceramic bowl was still clenched tightly in one hand, the drop of blood inside gone black and sticky. The incense was gone, consumed, and the candles flared even higher than they had the last time. Lance was somewhere behind him, calling for Shiro. And something was hurting. Burning. 

He reflexively let go of the bowl when the crystal burned hotter against his wrist. His charms were powerful, they had to be, but now they were working overtime to keep that purple magic off of him. And all of that energy had to go somewhere; in this case, directly into his flesh.

“What happened?” said Shiro’s voice. Footsteps pounded behind him and then hands were on his shoulders. Keith was curled up into himself, holding his wrists to his stomach and trying not to make a sound despite the burning.

“I don’t know.” that was Lance, sounding incredibly shaken. “He was just doing his trance thing and then his crystals started glowing and he fell.”

“We’ve gotta get them off of him!” For some reason Pidge’s voice had joined the cacophony. Shiro started to obey her, reaching down to try and pry Keith’s arms away from his middle. He shook his head as frantically as he could, but when his brother still didn’t stop, he spoke. 

“No!” he exclaimed through gritted teeth. “Let them finish!”

The glow was already fading. Shiro hesitated, but after a moment let go of his arm and moved his hands back to his shoulders.

“What are you doing?” asked Hunk. “They’re hurting him!”

“If Keith says to wait, we wait. He knows what he’s doing.”

_ Apparently everybody came to see the show. Lovely. _

The burning cooled, and the light disappeared along with it. Keith waited to see if it would return, but it seemed safe, so he slowly uncurled from his ball, wincing at how the crystals nudged the burns they’d created. 

“Ok.” he choked out. “They’re done.”

Immediately several sets of hands were upon him, unwinding the black cords that held the gems and revealing angry red burns underneath. Three on each wrist, one on his chest, and one on his throat. That one hurt the most. 

“What the hell.” muttered Pidge.

“How did this happen?” Hunk asked, hovering anxiously. Despite having only just met him, he seemed incredibly concerned for Keith’s wellbeing.

“Didn’t work.” said Keith, still a little disoriented. “Curse lashed out. Crystals had to protect me.”

“Jesus Christ.” breathed Lance from where he was standing back from the huddle. 

“M’fine. Just gimme a minute.”

Pidge straightened up and stomped over to his workbench. She was muttering angrily as she started shoving his jars around, apparently looking for some in particular. Everyone was watching her, and after a moment she made a little shriek of frustration.

“Why don’t you label anything?” she snapped over her shoulder. It sounded mean, but Keith understood. She wasn’t angry. She was scared and worried and didn’t know how else to show it. Thankfully she seemed to find the two or three herbs she was looking for, tossed a few sprigs of each into his mortar and pestle and began grinding away, still mumbling under her breath and probably swearing. 

“Keith.” Shiro said quietly. “You should go to the ER.”

“They’re just burns, Shiro.” Keith answered. His head was getting clearer by the moment, just enough to be stubborn. “I’m no stranger to those.”

“You also have a bruise from where you got thrown across the room yesterday.” His voice was tight with worry, and he still hadn’t let go of Keith’s shoulder. “This is getting way out of hand. You need to pass this off.”

“To who?” Keith snapped. “If I can’t break it, who else can?”

Shiro squeezed his shoulder. He understood. Shiro meant,  _ Pass this to the police, let them handle it.  _ He knew Lance didn’t have time for a police investigation, but he was telling Keith to let it go anyway, to protect him. Keith wouldn’t. 

“Keith, do you have aloe?” Pidge called from the workbench.

“Yeah, up front.” 

“I’ll get it.” Hunk volunteered, and he scurried from the room to go collect one of the leaves from Keith’s aloe plant. Lance still kept his distance, watching with a clenched jaw and wide eyes. 

“Lance.” he said firmly, snagging his attention. The burns hurt like a bitch, but as long as he kept himself distracted, he wouldn’t do anything stupid like let anyone else know it hurt. 

“I don’t want you to keep getting hurt because of me.” Lance murmured, staring down at his feet. Keith just sighed. He’d been expecting this reaction.

“Lance, I could get hurt any day of the week. Curses aren’t all rainbows and butterflies, this sort of thing happens.” 

“But the blood magic failed. Which means you have to go after the caster. You could have to kill somebody for me. You could die. I can’t let you.”

“Yeah, I could die.” Shiro’s grip tightened until it was almost painful. “But if I don’t try, you will  _ definitely  _ die.”

Lance clenched his fists. Keith felt Shiro shift as though he was going to say something, but just then Hunk puttered back into the room and handed off an aloe leaf to Pidge, who immediately began mixing the gel with her other herbs she’d ground up. A few moments later and she was kneeling by Keith, spreading the cool gel over his burns. He tried not to sigh at the relief, but he probably failed.

“I’ll get bandages.” murmured Shiro, finally releasing Keith to go fetch the gauze and medical tape he kept in his cubby. His spine was taut, probably still frustrated with Keith for refusing to give up the job. 

“Seriously, Keith.” Lance said, finally daring to step closer to him. “I can’t ask you to do this for me.”

“Then don’t ask.” Keith retorted as Shiro began to wind soft gauze around his wrists. “Just let me do my job.”

“Killing people isn’t your job.”

“There’s no guarantee I’ll have to kill them. We could sort it out peacefully, or send the cops to them once we figure out who they are.”

“Yes, that.” Shiro said firmly. “You aren’t getting into any firefights, understand?”

“So, what do we do now?” Hunk asked. “How do we find them?”

Pidge was the one to answer his question, matter of factly and while adjusting her glasses.

“Well, we have a couple of leads. We know they’ve been targeting people with luck magic and draining it from them. And we have the In Between.”

Lance was still lurking in the background, until Keith looked up at him. 

“Lance, did you have another dream last night?”

“Actually, yeah, I did. It was the same as the night before, except the voice was saying ‘Don’t go in, she’s waiting.’” 

“And let me guess, no idea of who ‘she’ is?”

“No clue.”

Keith pushed himself to his feet, ignoring Shiro’s fussing, and began to pace. 

_ So let’s see. What’s the connection. Luck magic, the In Between, magic siphoning, ‘she’s waiting’, how does it all go together?  _

Suddenly, he was struck by a thought.

“Hunk, how do dreamwalkers go to the In Between?”

Hunk jumped, as though not expecting to be asked a direct question, and then he shifted awkwardly. 

“It’s kinda like what you do, with your trance. Our minds leave our bodies and go to the other plane. Usually we connect with the person who we’re dreamwalking with and go to their specific area, where their dreams are being made. That way we can fix whatever problems it is they’re having.”

“And if that connection was broken, could someone get stuck there?”

Hunk’s expression did something complicated.

“I mean, I suppose it’s possible. I’ve heard stories about it, but they’re more like rumors, nothing solid.”

“What are you getting at, Keith?” Shiro asked, but Keith ignored him. He was on a roll here.

“And if it were to happen, what would happen to the dreamwalkers body?”

Hunk plopped himself down onto the overstuffed armchair in the corner, rubbing his hands over his legs anxiously. He seemed to have caught on to Keith’s line of thought, and apparently didn’t like it very much.

“They would- I mean, I think it would be like a coma. As long as the mind is alive in the In Between, the body should stay alive too. But if the body were to die, the mind would live on, unable to get back out.” Then his eyes widened. “ _ IN THEORY _ . As far as I know this hasn’t happened before.”

Keith turned to face Pidge, but she was already running to fetch her laptop. 

“Settle in, guys, we’re going to be here awhile.”

* * *

Pidge’s fingers hadn’t stopped moving in an hour. Shiro had gotten them all food and drink and then disappeared upstairs when Allura came home. Hunk was still in the armchair, one knee bouncing. Lance had slumped into the desk chair, and Keith honestly couldn’t tell if he was asleep or not. He seemed pretty haggard, cheeks pale and hollow. This curse had to be broken soon.

Keith sat beside Pidge, staring off into space. His burns still hurt, and if he was honest with himself, he was as nervous as Hunk. He wanted to do this for Lance. He wanted to help him, he couldn’t let him die when he could do something to stop it. But none of that meant he savored the idea of taking a life, or guaranteed he’d be able to do it if the need arose. 

“Here.” said Pidge. Her voice was quiet, but it caught the entire rooms attention anyway. “I think I found something.”

Hunk got up and hustled across the room to join their huddle. Lance’s eyes opened but he didn’t move, just watching from the chair. That was concerning, to say the least.

“A dreamwalker was admitted to the hospital in a coma about 8 months ago.” Pidge explained, angling the screen so that Keith could see the picture on the file. The woman looked nice, with wide eyes and dark hair. “Fingerprints identified her. Name’s Honerva. She was apparently arrested on the suspicion of necromancy, but the charges were dropped.” 

“8 months, huh?” Keith muttered. “That’s only a few months before the first victim died.”

Pidge nodded sagely. “She’s the only coma patient in the city who could be positively ID’d as a dreamwalker. If this theory of yours is correct, she’s our best bet.”

“Alright, so how do we do this Hunk?”

Hunk’s eyebrows practically hit the sky, and his voice came out as an uncertain squeak.

“How do we do what?”

“We need to go to the In Between and look for this lady.”

“What? Keith, the In Between is infinite, we can’t just sweep the whole place!”

“We won’t have to. If you can guide me in with Lance, I can track her with the blood seal she left on the curse.”

“And what if you find her? What then?”

“I’ll tell her we can help her find a way out of the In Between if she let’s Lance go.”

“But we  _ don’t  _ know how to do that!”

“We can figure that out later. Right now my priority is saving your friend.”

That made Hunk disregard his anxiety for a moment and consider. He looked over at Lance, who appeared to be attempting a smile. It wasn’t working out so well.

“You’re right.” Hunk admitted with a heavy sigh. “We have to do this.”

“So how do we?”

Hunk took a deep breath. Keith let him have his moment to center himself. 

“Both you and Lance will have to be asleep for this to work. Is there somewhere we can do that without making you guys lay on the floor?”

“You can use my room.” said Shiro’s voice from the door. He didn’t look upset, just standing there with a sad smile on his lips. 

_ He knows he can’t stop me.  _

“Keith’s has sigils all over it to prevent dreaming, it won’t work in there.” 

“Ok.” Hunk wound his hands together. “Are we… are we doing this now?”

“We should.” Keith crossed his arms over his chest, ignoring how it irritated his burns, and glanced at where Lance was still lounging in the desk chair. “Lance isn’t looking so hot.”

The boy in question perked up a little bit, trying to disguise his worsening condition behind a cheesy smile.

“I’m fine.” he said, lie clear as day. “Don’t rush into anything.”

Keith scoffed at him and rolled his eyes. “Don’t even start with that bullshit. Let’s just get a move on.”

Lance stumbled to his feet, stubbornly shoving Hunk away when he tried to help. Shiro, though still looking awfully worried about the whole situation, led them all up to the apartment above the shop.

Allura was waiting, sitting at the kitchen counter as she usually did. She looked tired, heavy bags under her eyes, but she smiled at the group all the same. She and Keith exchanged a look, and then she nodded just the tiniest bit. 

Before he could think about that too hard Shiro was leading them into the bedroom he shared with Allura. It was neat and plain, a few pieces of basic furniture framing the walls. Pidge immediately moved to sit at the foot of the bed, and Hunk followed to stand beside it. Lance hesitated in the doorway.

“Keith-”

“Lance, don’t even start.”

Shiro shot him a look for being so harsh, but it seemed to work since Lance finally crossed the room to the bed. Keith started to follow, only to be tugged back by Shiro’s hand on his arm.

“Be careful, ok?” his older brother murmured to him. 

“I will.” Keith promised, and then pulled away to join the others.

* * *

For once in his life, it didn’t take him ages to fall asleep. One moment he was lying back on Shiro’s bed, eyes slipping closed, and the next they were opening again in a completely different place.

The first thing he noticed was the fine white dust under his boots. Wind tossed his hair and stung his eyes, and looking up he realized why. He was standing on the edge of a cliff, jagged white rocks leading down to a raging sea below. The waves that slammed up against the mountain were just as pale as the rocks with foam. He stared down at the ocean for a long moment, then tilted his head to the sky and his breath caught in his throat.

There wasn’t a sky to speak of. Instead of blue and white clouds, countless stars and galaxies spread across his vision, glittering against a backdrop of black velvet. 

_ Gorgeous. _

Then he remembered what he came here to do, and his jaw set. No time for stargazing.

“Who are you?” snarled a decaying voice behind him, and Keith spun on his heel, fire instinctively flaring around his fists. 

Behind him the mountain flattened out into a plain that reached as far as he could see, covered in white dust and forming a thin line on the horizon where it met the black sky. Barely 100 feet from him was a hunched over figure. Yellow eyes glowered from underneath violet robes, and Keith’s stomach roiled for a moment before he collected himself. 

Magic was rolling off of this person in waves, and it didn’t feel like normal magic. It was like Frankenstein’s monster-- four or five different magic types (at least) leapt out at him, bound together into a patchwork by threads of shadow. This had to be her.

Keith clenched his fists and made the effort of forcing the flames away. His first offer was supposed to be peaceful. 

“I’m Keith.” he murmured. As far as he could see, neither Hunk nor Lance was anywhere in the vicinity. Good. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Are you Honerva?”

The figure visibly flinched, and Keith got his first look at her face. It was weathered and lined, the skin looking more like leather than skin. Limp white hair tumbled around her pointed chin. Her lips were cracked, and she narrowed her glowing eyes into a glare. Her time in the In Between hadn’t been treating her well, clearly. 

“Where did you hear that name?” she practically hissed. Keith wasn’t feeling too good about this interaction, but he pressed forward nonetheless.

“I can help you.” he said. “I can help you get out of here. You just need to take your curse off of Lance.”

That gave Honerva pause. She frowned thoughtfully, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. Keith decided to take advantage of her momentary silence to press his case.

“You don’t need his magic. I can get you out of here.”

She gave him the hardest look he’d ever seen in his life. 

“How?” 

“I came here with a dreamwalker. He can lead you out. Just take the curse off.”

Her face darkened unexpectedly, and Keith felt his gut drop like a stone. She wasn’t going to take the easy way out, was she?

“If I let you lead me out, you’ll just hand me over to the police. If you found me you must have known about the others.”

_ The others she killed. _

“I won’t.” Keith promised rashly. Ok so maybe that would come back to bite him, but honestly he didn’t care if she got punished or not. He just wanted to save Lance. 

Honerva withdrew several steps. “I don’t trust you. I’ll take my chances with  _ my  _ plan.” She raised her hands, and Keith barely had time to think  _ oh fuck  _ before he was diving out of the way of an incoming lightning bolt. 

He landed hard on his shoulder and rolled, white dust getting absolutely everywhere. He turned to face her, flames wreathing his fists again, and he grimaced. He hadn’t wanted to do it this way. But Honerva wasn’t giving him a choice. And he had a promise to keep and a record to uphold. 

Keith dodged another lightning bolt before pausing, bringing his hands together in front of him and concentrating on building a fire ball. He’d studied offensive magic, he knew how to do it, he’d been doing it instinctively since he was a kid. Granted most of those times were him unknowingly lighting himself on fire as a method of forcing others to leave him alone, but the idea was the same. 

The first one was too big, too slow, and she stepped easily out of its path. He’d have to be quicker or he wouldn’t have a chance. 

He dodged another attack from her, feet sliding in the gravel, and retaliated with a smaller, faster orb. She threw up an arm and a purple shield materialized, rendering it useless. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized exactly how much magic he’d spent on the blood experiment earlier. That static feeling was back, buzzing between his fingers, and sweat was already curling the ends of his hair. 

_ Fuck fuck fuck, this is not good.  _

She had him on the run now, blasting bolt after bolt, forcing him to change direction and constantly keep on his toes with no time to strike back. Keith wasn’t stupid, he noticed how she was reeling him in, forcing him closer to her with every blast. She couldn’t catch him, so she was going to force him to get close enough to deal the final blow. Well, that was fine. Because that was Keith’s plan too. 

Honerva cackled. She almost had him. Just a little bit closer…

Her hands latched onto Keith’s shoulders, overlong nails digging in and drawing blood. There was a deadly, dramatic pause as she struggled to pull together power from her patchwork quilt of different magic. That gave Keith just enough time to grab her hanging sleeves and throw every last bit of magic he had left into it. 

His vision started to tunnel immediately, but he had enough left to watch Honerva’s entire body burst into flames. He collapsed onto his knees as she shrieked and flopped about, voice only getting louder as the fire started to lick at the flesh under her robes. 

_ Hunk,  _ he thought, hoping the dreamwalker could hear him,  _ I think it’s time to leave. _

His vision went black, but instead of passing out, he woke up.

Lance was already up and off the bed, cheering and whooping with his fists held to the ceiling. If he wasn’t incorrect (or hallucinating) it was snowing in Shiro’s room, a reaction of Lance’s magic to his emotion. Hunk was on his feet as well, happy for his friend but glancing over at Keith with worried eyes. Shiro and Pidge hovered above him. 

“It worked?” he mumbled, not even trying to sit up yet. The burns he’d forgotten about only hurt worse now that he was back in his body and he was exhausted. He wouldn’t be able to do curse work for another couple of days, at least.

“Yes.” Shiro answered tightly, and Pidge laid a hand on his shoulder. 

“Good work, Keith.” she praised. Keith tried to smile in return. He wasn’t sure he succeeded. 

“You had to go with Plan B, didn’t you?” That was Shiro again, all brotherly concern. Keith barely nodded, and his eyes slipped closed. He just wanted to sleep now. 

Shiro let him sleep. 


End file.
